


The Sweetness of Defrosting

by zetsubonna



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ANONYMOUS ASKED: <br/>Are you okay with trope-y things? If so, could you do "cuddling for warmth" with Natasha and Steve?</p><p>twistedmindstorm: Only if you feel like doing it, what would happen if Steve was skittish? Like, when he’s on Cap mode he’s brave but when he’s just Steve he’s overwhelmed ‘cause enhanced hearing and sight makes everything too loud and bright and that’s hard.</p><p>Anon #2: Touch-starved(-but-wary)-Steve!!! Because growing up with Bucky, he got used to being touched all the time (a hand on his shoulder, hugs, hair-ruffles, sharing a bed when it got too cold), and now everyone treats him like a national monument. So when Sam (or Bucky or Nat) starts with the casual touches, he actually gets a little twitchy despite wanting it soo goddamn badly (since waking up, he is shown initiating touch with Bruce, Nat and Sam, all other interactions are basically beatings)…</p><p>Zetsubonna's note: I felt like all of these could work together, and I need practice writing Nat anyway, so, on va voir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha has been learning how to have friends. She’s not scared of it, it doesn’t make her nervous, she’s just not sure who she is, so she tries to see if being the person people she likes want her to be fits her at all.

Clint was her first study. He’s a mess, with his gorgeous ex-wife, his shitty apartment, his gross habits of leaving mostly eaten pizza in boxes laying around and drinking coffee out of the pot, his careless facade taking up all of his energy so that nobody realizes he goes home to this building that’s barely renovated from a tenement and passes out when he’s not working.

For Clint, Natasha became the best friend. She became the partner, the work wife. She brought him Gatorade and packs of new undershirts, socks and underwear because she knew he wouldn’t notice or take care of it himself. She picked him up when he needed someone to drive. She rolled her eyes and smirked at his smart-ass mouth.

 _From_ Clint, Natasha learned that she liked Gatorade, crappy modern pop music and black cherry ice cream. She learned she doesn’t  _mind_ day old pizza at room temperature, provided the box has been sitting in a relatively clean safehouse. She learned how to work in a group, how to depend on someone. The best thing she learned from Clint, though, hands down?

Natasha  _loves_  snuggling, cuddling,  _honest_  physical affection of every type. They maintain a careful distance from each other while they’re on the job, usually, but Clint’s the one who taught her the kissing distraction and how to lean on someone while watching television, how to pet hair, how to fit under someone’s arm and find comfort in the warmth and smell of another human being.

It didn’t surprise Clint, it didn’t surprise Natasha, but Steve was startled.

She couldn’t blame him, really, it seemed like everyone he’d touched since he came out of the ice had been either a professional handshake or a fistfight. Steve tried not to show that his senses were occasionally  _painfully_  acute, that, when his guard was down, he grimaced at noises that were too loud and lights that were too bright- nothing overt, but Natasha’s used to casing a person’s tells.

Steve has just a tiny tightening of his mouth when he’s startled by a noise, his eyes, unless he’s in low light, are always hard and have a very slight squint, like he’s in direct sunlight. He blinks abruptly at strong smells, and he shies away from being touched.

At the same time, Natasha noted, Steve was  _terribly_  lonely, so she started nagging him about dating. He wasn’t outright dismissive of the idea, so she knew he wasn’t opposed to it, not really. One of the first things she’d noted about Steve was that he was very private about his personal life while, at the same time, being  _quite_  vocal about what he didn’t like or approve.

She didn’t  _mean_  for the kiss on the escalator to be the first time she broke his personal space bubble for anything other than work. For her, it  _was_  work. It wasn’t until they were in the truck together that she realized that, even though the danger was no longer immediate, Steve had all of his shields up, even his jaw was tight and his voice was chilly.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" she teased. Under the teasing, she was legitimately worried. She  _liked_  Steve. She didn’t expect him- or anyone, really, other than Clint- to like her back, but she did like him. She hadn’t intended to upset him. She’d just done what her judgment said was necessary.

“That bad, huh?”

He still had that tense look on his face. “I didn’t say that-”

“Well it kinda  _sounds_  like that’s what you’re saying,” he huffed.

“No, I didn’t, I just wondered how much practice you had.” She was  _trying_  to keep it cheeky, to keep it light.

Natasha  _liked_  Steve. She was realizing, the more time she spent with him, how much she wanted him to like her. Maybe never as much as Clint liked her- she and Clint had so much history- but enough to make him a little less lonely.

“You don’t need practice,” Steve grumbled.

“Everyone needs practice,” she objected.

“It was not my first kiss since 1945. I’m 95; I’m not dead.”

He sounded so annoyed. She left it alone.

It wasn’t until after DC, when they had their first interaction that wasn’t a mission or a meeting or the world coming to an end that Natasha got a chance to touch Steve again. He’d been on the road with Sam for a while, surely, with all the obvious chemistry between them, he’d have gotten a little less skittish?

But no, he was still flinching at everything, just small, so small nobody even saw it, other than her. Natasha wanted to close her eyes and bite her lip, but she kept her game face on until things were calm and Steve sat down in the middle of the couch. Natasha sat beside him, on his left.

He seemed okay with that, so she stayed. She felt, on some level, like she was approaching a stray cat, the way she waited thirty minutes before she had slowly slid close enough that their arms brushed. He didn’t seem to notice, and she hoped it was because he trusted her at this point. He’d made it a point to say so, after all.

Another thirty minutes before the brushing turned into a light lean. He looked at her, then, just a glance at the top of her head, but he didn’t pull away. He drew in a breath- it was a beat longer and the slightest bit shakier than usual- but he didn’t pull away.

He still hadn’t moved away thirty minutes later, by which time it was an indisputable lean and her head was against the lowest part of his shoulder. She closed her eyes. Steve smelled good. Not as good as Clint fresh out of a shower, but good.

"What are you doing, Nat?" he asked, very softly.

"Tell me about Bucky," she said, low and gentle, without checking his face, because Steve couldn’t  _fix_  his face but up to a certain point. “You’re best friends,” Natasha knew how much Steve hated it when anyone referred to Bucky in the past tense. “Didn’t he ever hug you?”

Steve shifted his weight, not pulling away from her, but cautiously pressing back. “All the time.”

"You try not to let anybody touch you," Natasha told him. "Never more than a handshake. Don’t you miss it?"

Some of the tension leaked out of his posture. “Yes. But- It’s different.”

"How do you mean?" She shifted her face up to meet his eyes without moving away from him.

"I don’t-" Steve hated to talk about his feelings and she knew it. He fell silent, holding his breath.

"Is your sense of touch as strong as the rest?" Natasha guessed. He made a low noise of confusion, so she continued. "I notice. You wince at bright lights. You don’t like loud noises. You look personally offended when things smell bad. Is it like that?"

Steve exhaled. “That’s a big part of it, yeah.”

Natasha hummed thoughtfully, and then ducked her head back down, closing her eyes. “Thanks for letting me.”

His tone was wry. “Never figured you for a snuggler.”

"You look comfortable," she said, smirking. "I’d lay on your chest, if I thought you wouldn’t flinch. I do it with Barton all the time. We eat cold pizza and ice cream and watch my shows."

Steve was quiet for a while, then, slowly, leaned away from her enough to get his arm free and wrapped it around her shoulders so she could lean on his chest. She made a low, pleased sound in her throat, and he sighed.

"You don’t like a lot of people," he said. "I’m on a very short list, aren’t I?"

"Yeah, well," Natasha took a moment to appreciate how much cleaner Steve’s clothes were than Clint’s, then missed Clint. "The ones I do like are usually the best people, anyway."

Steve laughed quietly, and Natasha adjusted herself to press closer.

"Besides, I was freezing," she complained. "You put off heat like a furnace."

"Typical," Steve returned. "Just like everyone else, only want me for my body."

Natasha laughed, relaxing even further, so his arm wouldn’t be so high up and they could both be comfortable. “You know me,” she said, just as sly. “I can’t do anything without an ulterior motive.”

Steve gave her a tiny, tentative squeeze when he laughed, and Natasha had a ghost of a smile on her face for the rest of the day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ELLISJANEBELL ASKED:  
> Nat & Steve Brotp and 90s pop music

"You have satellite radio in your car," Steve noted, eyeballing the dash.

"I do," Natasha agreed, as forthcoming as ever.

"It’s never  _on_ ,” Steve pressed.

"I only listen to eight stations." Natasha slowed, flicking on the blinker. Initially, Steve had worried that she would be a crazy driver, since she was a spy, but she was actually the safest person he’d ever ridden with, including cabbies, chauffeurs, and Sam.

Steve considered it, looking out the window for a moment, and then looked back at her. “Everyone else gives me playlists,” he told her, prompting.

Natasha smiled. “I know.”

"Tom gave me the fifties," he listed, ticking it off on his fingers. Tom was the young security guard from the Smithsonian who  _always_  recognized him and whose crush was even more obvious than Beth-the-waitress had been in New York. “Pepper’s working on the sixties, Clint’s on the seventies, and Sam is covering everything he says white people don’t appreciate- which is  _accurate_ , his stuff  _is_  the best-“

Natasha laughed.

"So I’m still missing about thirty years of music," Steve continued. "And you’re holding out on me. You know I’ll listen to anything. I even gave Stark’s godawful noise a chance."

Natasha hummed noncommittally for a moment as the light went green and she had to start threading carefully through DC rush hour traffic. The deep breath she took before she spoke made Steve wonder if he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

"I was a kid, you know," she said. "When I was recruited. In Russia."

Steve blinked a few times, his teeth scraping his bottom lip. “No,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t read your leaks, Nat.”

"It’s fine," she said, flashing him a smile he knew she saved specifically for people she  _actually_ liked. “I’m just saying- I haven’t had thirty years to cultivate a love of music, not like everyone else. I don’t even have the base you had, of twenty years of listening to the radio and developing taste and an ear.”

He shrank into his seat a little. “Ah.”

"What I’ve listened to has mostly been for work," she said, glancing into the mirror before changing lanes. "Preparing cover identities, that sort of thing. Classical compositions, ballet, orchestra- it’s lovely, it’s moving, but it isn’t properly-" she paused, considering, and then snickered. " _Fun_.”

"And you’re fun," Steve agreed, quiet but happy. Natasha being secretly fun was a constant source of delight in Steve’s life. It had taken him six whole months to appreciate how  _incongruous_  other people would find her habitual use of  _emoticons_.

"I’m a riot," Natasha confirmed in her flattest, most serious spy voice, then bumped Steve with her elbow. "Head back."

"Sorry." Steve moved so she could check the passenger side mirror. "So what do you consider fun?"

"If I’d grown up here," Natasha began, pushing the button and turning the volume on low so that it wouldn’t interrupt their conversations, "And been a  _normal_  person, I’d have graduated high school in 2002.”

"Right."

"So, when I’m trying to be  _me_ ,” Natasha emphasized, tapping the dash, “I like  _this_.”

"What is this?" Steve said after taking in the first thirty seconds. "It sounds like Bob Dylan."

Natasha grinned. “It’s  _Jakob_  Dylan. His son’s band. The Wallflowers, ‘The Difference,’ 1996. The CD- music wasn’t fully digital yet- was called  _One Headlight_. This isn’t my favorite song from it, but it’s good.”

Steve peered at the display. “90s on 9? So- the whole station is just one decade?”

"Exactly," Natasha nodded. "Eighties, nineties, first ten years of the millennium, and everything that’s popular  _now_ , that’s what I listen to. That’s  _all_  I listen to. Clint says I’m a philistine.”

"He thinks it’s terrible?" Steve was genuinely confused.

"Anyone born before ‘85 is fairly convinced the ’90s were the worst decade in all of American pop music, not counting this one," Natasha said. She was still grinning when she said it. "That’s why they’re hiding it from you. They’re ashamed."

Steve laughed. “It’s not bad,” he said. “I like this.”

Natasha relaxed even further at the next light, gesturing to the floorboards by Steve’s feet. “Get my phone out of my purse,” she instructed, grinning. “Plug it in, we’ll see if you still like it by the time we get to Williamsburg.”

Over the course of the next forty-five minutes, Natasha kept Steve’s fingers moving. They rarely finished a whole song- the ’90s had been an incredibly diverse period.

"I think I  _like_  boy bands,” Steve muttered. “I’m not supposed to, am I?”

"Were you actually in a barbershop quartet?" Natasha asked. "Because if you were, it makes perfect sense. They’re popular with people who enjoy gratuitous harmonies and thirteen-year-old girls."

"I wasn’t," Steve admitted. "But only because I was sick all the damned time. I like singing."

"So do I. Oh! En Vogue, Sam will  _kill_  me if I leave them out. Pepper gave you The Beatles, right? Find their cover of ‘Yesterday,’ it’s excellent.”

The Fugees were her next pick, which he really liked, and ’Do Wop’ from  _The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill_  was Steve’s pick of the day. He wouldn’t let Natasha pick another song until it finished. She segued into Mariah Carey, Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLaughlin and then, biting her lip, put on Fiona Apple. _  
_

"Damn," Steve said appreciatively. "She covered John Lennon? Isn’t that the equivalent of trying to one up Bing Crosby?"

"I like hers better," Natasha said. "Her original stuff is good, too. Damn it," she frowned. "We’re almost there and I haven’t even backtracked to  _Dangerous_.”

"Sam and Rhodey are tag-teaming my graduate course on Michael Jackson," Steve assured her. "I’ve already heard it. Give me more Sublime, you were so excited."

"You’re lucky nobody can kill me," Natasha said, putting on ‘What I Got.’ "I’m ruining your ears with this."

"Trust me," Steve said, bumping his arm into hers. "They’ll get over it."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lavendernebula requested: something about Steve and Natasha being friends because I have a strong love of friendfic and there's a surprisingly small amount of it

“It’s slang, you know,” Steve tells her, tapping the air with his spoon. “It means hook up and have sex.”

“When you’re twenty, sure,” Natasha says, rolling her eyes. “We’re a lot past twenty, y'know. Also, you like boring ice cream.”

“You gave me this,” Steve huffed. “I thought you liked it.”

“I like all variations of black cherry ice cream,” Natasha said, propping her bare feet up on Steve’s coffee table and ignoring his pointed glare. “Stake out carbs.”

“Barton,” Steve nodded.

“You got your cheap peppermints and your cardamom orange sorbetto,” Natasha drawled, lazily licking her spoon. “I got my black cherries and gunpowder tea.”

“He doesn’t actually drink the tea,” Steve objected.

“He keeps the teabags in his dress clothes to help him smell fancy,” Natasha conceded. “He drinks black coffee. From the pot.”

“How did you know about the sorbetto?” Steve asked, bumping her upper arm with his.

“I’m a spy,” Natasha smacked her lips, slipping another spoonful into her mouth and wiggling her eyebrows. “I spy on people. S'what I do.”

“You don’t spy on me,” Steve said. “Were you snooping in his kitchen?”

“He barely makes any money,” Natasha sniffed. “You bought him a goddamn three hundred dollar blender so he could make you fancy fucking ice cream.”

“Sorbetto isn’t ice cream,” Steve said, trying to look stern. “Anyway, it’s his favorite. He mentioned it, I wanted him to be able to share.”

“It would be,” Natasha smirked. “Bougie ass fancy sorbetto.”

“That’s what he called it,” Steve agreed, grinning. “Now, switch with me. You only make fun of my food when you want to trade.”

“Cherry Garcia is the best damn ice cream those Vermont boys make,” Natasha agreed, handing him her pint. “Now, shh. Our man Jack is talking.”

“You’re in love with the Detective Inspector,” Steve accused.

“Shh!” Natasha insisted, smacking his thigh.

 


End file.
